Tuesday, March 01, 2011

U.S. House planning vote to repeal net neutrality this month

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner believes the FCC’s recent net neutrality rulemaking will come up for a repeal vote in the House as early as this month. The rules are only a couple months old, as the FCC voted on December 21 to formalize their position on how providers manage their networks. Since that time, however, Republicans have been sworn in as a majority in the House and have indicated plans to overturn the FCC's assumption of jurisdiction over net neutrality.

House Republicans have already impacted the rulemaking by defunding the net neutrality rules enforcement in the stop-gap appropriations the House recently passed. However, Speaker Boehner believes the opposition will go even further, citing a resolution introduced by Greg Walden (R-Ore.) who chairs the Communications Subcommittee. Walden’s resolution would completely invalidate the FCC’s rules on net neutrality, and Boehner believes that resolution will quickly pass the House.

Of course, in order for any repeal to become law, the Senate must also pass the measure and President Obama must sign it. Even if the House were to overturn net neutrality, it is a long shot that it will ever pass in the Senate and even less likely that the President would ever sign it into law.